Fluid Page 8

  “I’m here to help you guys. There’s some damaging stuff here, and we all know Isaiah had a tendency to dig up things nobody else could find.”

  “We know about your relationship with Kalb,” Branen said, flatly. “You were involved in everything he knew. We will trace it back and find all of the details you’re privy to.”

  She laughed, and it wasn’t a pleasant sound. “Trust me, you don’t have it all. Kalb likes to talk, but it’s rumors. Isaiah was a slippery bastard, but he was a damn good reporter. He’d take a rumor and track it down to hard evidence. He’d find things nobody else could find, and he had sources you couldn’t imagine.” She took a breath. “None of that matters right now. What matters is I’ll protect you guys and keep all of the information quiet. If you’ll work with me.” She’d used Kalb, like she’d use her husband’s research here, she was thinking. She’d do whatever it took.

  “You want us to… work with you?” Branen asked, skepticism in his voice.

  “Yes,” she nodded. “I’ll protect you, and you’ll protect me.” She’d killed her husband, her mind supplied, but she had the leverage. “I’m going to be on the straight and narrow from now on, and I’m sure this department will do the same. There’s no point in dragging the past into this. It would be bad for everyone.” Then she waited, and I could feel her nervousness. She had leverage, but not a huge amount, and even she didn’t know where all of Isaiah’s notes were. She was counting on the department to want the difficulty over with more than they wanted to drag her through a trial. Hopefully.

  Branen paused for a long time—at least forty-five seconds. Maybe over a minute. Finally, he said, “That’s what I thought you were going to say. I don’t see any reason to pursue this any further. As far as I’m concerned, your husband drowned from alcohol-related causes. That being said, I can re-open this investigation at any time if I see reason to.”

  “I understand,” Patricia said, and I could feel her relief, her joy at having talked her way out of trouble. Her satisfaction that she’d gotten what she wanted, dead husband and Kalb and escaping prosecution. She’d gotten it.

  I pulled away, disgusted.

  “We take care of our department,” Branen said evenly. “See that you keep that in mind.”

  “Absolutely. I wouldn’t expect any less,” Patricia the murderer said, and got up to shake Branen’s hand across the table.

  He let her go, escorting her out with courtesy, his body language even and settled.

  Fury rose up in me like a flood.

  “That’s not fair!” I cried out, unable to help myself. The words echoed in the small space of the recording room, echoed with an ugly loudness.

  Freeman turned and spoke to the recording technician. “Can you give us a minute?” The technician, who wanted a break anyway, left. Then Freeman said to me, specifically, “It’s been decided. We’re done.”

  “But it’s not right,” I said. “She did it. Any idiot could see that she did it.” Or, at least any telepath could. “It was there in implication. Really. If we can just . . .” I trailed off. She hadn’t said it, had she? She hadn’t said anything out loud that we could use.

  “Implication doesn’t solve cases or get them prosecuted,” Freeman said.

  “There has to be more evidence,” I said, a little desperately, fury still riding me. “Someone else we can talk to. It isn’t right she’s getting away with it just because she has his notes. We should be taking those damn things and doing investigations on them anyway!”

  Freeman stood there and looked at me. “You done?”

  “It’s not right,” I said, intensely frustrated. “It isn’t.”

  Freeman shook his head, the scar compressing with the movement. “Look. I’ve got two gang shootings, a stranger murder, a serial rapist, three armed robberies with major injuries, a hostage situation during a bank robbery in which a man ended up dead, oh, and a political killing left on the steps of the courthouse. And that’s just what’s on my desk right now.”

  “It doesn’t mean she should get away with it!”

  “Let’s say you’re right. Let’s say she did it. You read her right, you got the real story, you’re totally right. That doesn’t mean we can prove a bit of it. Any defense attorney in the world will argue accident with the evidence we’ve got, and she didn’t confess. If anything, her husband’s notes open a whole can of alternate suspects. It will never—never—make it through the court system with any positive outcome. And let’s say that it could. With a hundred hours of investigation, with enough work and effort, we get her. So what? Recidivism rates on spousal murders are almost none, and that’s a hundred hours we could have spent catching somebody who might actually do it again.”

  I shook my head, violently.

  “Realistically she won’t do it again. She has the notes, she has the bargain, but she also knows we’re watching her. Branen’s made the right call. We don’t have the resources, and taking her off the street does nothing. We’d all be better off if I spend that time taking down that serial rapist or that political killer. At least those might make a difference.” That was the most words I’d ever heard at once from Freeman, possibly the most I’d ever heard him say. His tone was flat and cynical, and very very certain.

  “You’re giving up,” I said.

  Freeman looked me straight in the eye then. “That’s not what I said. The brass says we’re done. So we’re done. And. There’s good reason to be done, and more cases to prosecute. Whining about the fairness of it all does nothing to help anybody, much less your victim. You want to work with this department, that’s how it works.”

  “That’s not right,” I said, one more time. I was deeply, deeply frustrated. But there was nothing in the face of his absolute certainty. His body language, his mind, said take it or leave it.

  “That’s life. That’s police work,” he said, and walked out.

  Frustrated, I exited into the hall, passing the recording technician on his way back, now smelling of smoke. I wanted a cigarette. Bad.

  Then I stopped cold, three feet from the elevator, right behind Branen.

  The doors had opened, revealing Commander Draco with Lieutenant Paulsen’s hand on his shoulder, pushing him forward.

  “Commander Draco,” Branen said then. “If you’ll step into Interview Three, we have some questions for you about your involvement in the recent thefts from our evidence room.” And a half a dozen other crimes and corruption charges, his mind supplied along with anger; for all his outward cool, Branen was not happy at this situation from Draco. At least that much was justice, I told myself. At least that.

  Draco set his jaw, and I felt a wave of rage from him—not rage at a false accusation, but rage at getting caught. “I outrank you,” he said, pulling away from Paulsen into the open hallway.

  “You absolutely do, sir,” Branen said evenly. “Which is why Lieutenant Paulsen and I will both be there while we wait for the county Internal Affairs investigator. The captain will also make an appearance later.” He was thinking it was too early, that he’d rather have waited for clearer evidence against Draco before moving, but Kalb had forced his hand.

  Draco noticed me then. “Who are you?” he barked at me.

  “Nobody, sir,” I said, and ducked into the now-empty elevator and pushed the button.

  The doors closed, and I breathed, furious. I was deeply, deeply frustrated with Patricia getting away with the murder of Jeffries. He hadn’t been a nice guy, but he’d done good thing and his murder was just… he would never get justice, would he?

  But the accusations against Draco, rumors though they were, had a full investigation in the works. Maybe that was enough. Maybe it’d have to be. Maybe Jeffries’s work to expose the corruption had done that much.

  It still didn’t feel fair, damn it. It still didn’t feel fair.

  I showed up at the PI office late, well after dinner, still upset but with check in hand for the week. We had bills to pay, and Mindspace Investigatio
ns wouldn’t stay open at this rate, even with me putting the paycheck into the bills. Maybe the office space had been a mistake. Maybe it had been a huge, shitty mistake. Maybe this all was.

  When I opened the front door, a light was on towards the back. A second’s attention identified Cherabino’s mind in the space in front of me. “Hi,” I said, just loud enough that I thought she could hear me. She was probably still pissed, but whatever. Today so was I.

  I shrugged off my coat, put it on the hook in the reception area, and heard a faint greeting back. I pulled my check out of the coat pocket then and moved to the back, where Cherabino was, in front of the desk that was hers, across from the neater one that was mine.

  She looked tired and felt worse, like she hadn’t slept in days.

  “What?” I yelled at her, out of patience. “What aren’t you telling me?”

  That made her stand up and face me, setting her jaw. “I do not appreciate you yelling at me.”

  “I don’t effing care!”

  “Well, hooray for you. I just got a thousand ROCs for the agency! You get to care now!”

  “Oh,” I said, and took a breath. “How’d you get a thousand?”

  “A client hired me to do some research for him,” she said, and her mind was both proud and a little resentful. “You get paid?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Yeah, I got paid for a shitty case and an even shittier ending. They’re dropping the case, Cherabino. The wife’s holding shit over their heads, and they’re dropping the case. Just because he was an addict, and not a nice guy. It’s not fair.”

  “Oh,” she said, and leaned against the edge of her desk. “That does sound pretty crappy.”

  “They say I’m done. Done. And Freeman’s backing them up. What about justice? What about doing the right thing, for crying out loud?”

  “Yeah, well, they aren’t all that interested in doing the right thing anymore, now are they?” she asked, and I knew her bitter tone was all about the police brutality charge—the trumped-up charge—that had ended her career. “At least you still get to work there.”

  “Trust me, you didn’t miss anything. It’s going to be a shit show tonight anyway.” I sighed and took my own seat on the edge of my own desk, maybe three feet away from her. And then I told her about the Draco thing.

  She whistled when I was done. “Holy crap. If IA is going after somebody so high up, they’re serious about this corruption thing.” She wondered, briefly, if she’d seen anything suspicious she should have reported.

  “Yeah,” I said. I was still frustrated, but now, mostly, mostly tired. “I wanted to solve it, Cherabino.”

  “I know.” She got up and came over, putting her hand on my shoulder. She moved slowly enough I anticipated and shielded, just enjoying the feel of her hand. “It’s the worst, when you can’t finish it.”

  “It really is,” I said, meeting her eyes. I felt that tension again, the memory of all the kissing we’d been doing as recently as a month ago. The memory of how she felt under my hands.

  She felt it too, and pulled away. She picked up her jacket from the back of the desk chair, and said, carefully, “You hungry? You can tell me all about the case over dinner. Maybe I’ll tell you about mine too.”

  I took her peace offering, reluctantly. “Yeah. Food is good, and we can actually afford something with both of us bringing stuff in. Maybe.”

  “We’ll be okay, Adam. We really will. The clients will come.”

  I took a breath. “I hope so,” I said. “I really, really hope so.”

  <<<<>>>>

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  Check out the rest of the Mindspace Investigations series:

  Rabbit Trick (short story)

  Clean

  Payoff(novella)

  Sharp

  Marked

  Vacant

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  About the Author

  Alex Hughes, the author of the award-winning Mindspace Investigations series from Roc, has lived in the Atlanta area since the age of eight. She is a graduate of the prestigious Odyssey Writing Workshop, and her short fiction has been published in several markets including EveryDay Fiction, Thunder on the Battlefield and White Cat Magazine. She is an avid cook and foodie, a trivia buff, and a science geek, and loves to talk about neuroscience, the Food Network, and writing craft—but not necessarily all at the same time. You can visit her at Twitter at @ahugheswriter or on the web at www.ahugheswriter.com.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Fluid

  Thank you for reading

  About the Author

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